In December 2020, cards with less than 4GB memory became out of order for Ether mining. lolMiner software update allows people to continue using them for a few more Epochs.
In recent days, the lolMiner mining software received an update that optimizes the “Zombie mode” option. This allows old AMD cards to continue to mine Ether and reap a good profit.
It is possible to use this update with video cards such as the RX470, RX 480, RX 570, and RX 580. They had become “out of service” for Ether mining following the arrival of the DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) Epoch 393. This graph allows the miner to find an appropriate solution to each block of the chain in which it works. This should receive an update after a certain number of mined blocks (every 30,000 blocks), known as Epoch.
In December 2020, when DAG reached a new Epoch in Ether mining, its size received an upgrade to exceed 4GB. This change allows all miners with graphics cards with less than 4 GB of memory that are no longer profitable.
However, it is necessary to activate the Zombie Mode to keep taking advantage of graphics cards with lolMiner. This feature allows video cards to extend their life when they have reached their memory capacity. It comes into play when the video card no longer fully supports the DAG file.
Although cards with 4GB memory can operate at their current hash rate, profitability will continue to decline as the DAG Epoch increases. For that reason, users must activate the Zombie Mode, for which there is a limit. It is important to note that this performance increase will not last forever, since it will only be available for a few more DAG Epochs.
Way to Enable the Zombie Mode
lolMiner updates 1.21 for Windows and 1.22 for Linux allow the activation of the optimized Zombie Mode. When the owners of video cards with 4GB memory mine Ether, they will get a 15-20% more hash rate compared to other miners.
When installing a RX580 video card with 4GB memory directly into the PCI-16x slot, the hash rate will be around 27.27MH/s. Other miners with less than 4 GB memory will have a hash rate of 11-13MH/s.
Even with an increase in the DAG file in future Epochs, the hash rate of the video cards will keep decreasing. However, this is the only solution to continue taking advantage of the useful life of these video cards for the moment.
The Challenge of Epochs on Ethereum
Some miners on the Ethereum network find that updating a mining algorithm is challenging. Miners with graphics processing cards (GPUs) with less than 4GB of memory must increase their capacity to remain profitable.
The size of the DAG increases by 8MB every 30 thousand blocks of the chain, in Epochs that last 5 days or 100 hours. The DAG stored in the memory of the video cards allows users to mine Ether through the algorithm of Proof of Work (PoW).
By Alexander Salazar
